


All I Need Is Your Hand

by BotchedExperiment



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Fever, Hurt/Comfort, Influenza, Light Angst, M/M, Sick Character, Sickfic, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23757355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BotchedExperiment/pseuds/BotchedExperiment
Summary: He misses his magic.He misses being the one in the relationship who does the looking-after.ORMagnus has trouble dealing with his newfound mortality.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 7
Kudos: 84





	All I Need Is Your Hand

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy!
> 
> title from that greg laswell song "i'd be lying" because apparently i'm jumping on the song lyrics train

Magnus learns more and more of what not having magic means every day. Every time he has to change clothes or put on makeup (fucking hell, painting one’s nails is a nightmare), he’s reminded that he’s mundane now.

He’s reminded even more so when he wakes up feeling like death.

He forgot what it feels like to be sick, but he certainly remembers now.

Alec’s peacefully asleep, the warm glow of the sun coming in through the stained glass casting a beautiful light on him. It’s nice to see him getting some rest after the stressful week he’s been having. There's been some conflict between groups, and Alec’s been working tirelessly to regain control of the situation. Magnus hates politics, and what they’re doing to his boyfriend.

What he also hates, is how he’s feeling at the moment. He goes to turn over, and gasps as his head swims the minute he tries to move.

His limbs feel like lead, his head is starting to hurt, and he can feel an ominous itch in the back of his sinuses like sneezes and coughs are in his near future.

Alec’s alarm goes off. The shadowhunter wakes with a start. His sleep-tousled hair hangs in his face a bit as he rubs his eyes. Finally, he looks to Magnus with a sleepy smile.

“Morning.”

Magnus returns the smile. Despite everything terrible happening to him right now, it's nice to be able to wake up next to his boyfriend. “Good morning.”

Alec sits up with a groan and immediately starts to get dressed. Magnus wants to pull him back into bed, tell him to stay for a few more minutes, and normally he would. But he can hardly muster up the strength to get his head off of the pillow right now.

“I’m not ready for today,” Alec sighs. “We’ve got the others coming over to discuss their side of things. It’s... not going to be fun.”

Magnus hums sympathetically, or tries to. It seems his nose is stuffed up. Fantastic. He saves himself by instead saying, “I hope you’ll remember to eat breakfast today.”

Alec’s halfway through pulling his shirt over his head when he stops to look at Magnus, an adorably ridiculous sight. “That was a one-time thing, okay?” the rest of his sentence muffled as he finishes getting dressed. “I was really busy yesterday. I barely had time to shower.”

“Mm, and today?”

“I’ll eat breakfast. Promise.”

Magnus smiles up at him. He thinks about telling Alec he isn’t feeling well. He knows Alec would call everything off in a heartbeat to make sure Magnus was okay, and he wants nothing more than to snuggle with Alec all day until he feels better.

But Alec has a job to do, and he’s already done so much to help Magnus. There’s other things for him to be worrying about right now, much more important things than his now-useless and mundane boyfriend.

Magnus has to admit that there’s some pride in the decision. He’s tired of all of these shadowhunters taking care of him. Most of them don’t even want him to be there. What a sight it must be to see one of the world’s most powerful warlocks now sharing what is ultimately a dorm room with his boyfriend.

So he doesn’t tell Alec that he’s sick.

He feigns being too tired to get up and give him a kiss. Alec just leans down and kisses him instead before telling him to have a good day and he can go back to sleep now without being bothered.

Magnus does go back to sleep, immediately. Perhaps that’s all he needs. Rest is the best thing for sick people, after all. Maybe it’ll fix him.

\-----

He wakes up feeling even more like death than he had before.

Shivers run through him, making him sink deeper under the covers. Ah, the beginning of a fever, then. Fantastic. Exactly what he needs on top of the pressure in his skull and the ache in the rest of his body.

Everything hurts. It’s not dignifying to wallow in self-pity but... yeah, everything hurts and he hates this. How do humans deal with this on a regular basis?

An itchy cough bubbles out of him, weak and unproductive and  _ painful.  _ There’s probably plenty of mundane medications that can solve his problems, but finding them would require getting out of bed and asking around and…  _ ugh. _

Instead, he just lies there and wishes that he wasn’t a burden on everyone he loves. That’s probably a bit dramatic, but he can’t bring himself to care at the moment.

And honestly? Lying in bed and wishing for death is a fantastic strategy until his bladder demands attention.

Sitting up is a slow process, because by the dots edging his vision, he knows that he could black out if he moves any quicker. His teeth chatter as the blankets fall off of him and pool in his lap, and he curses last night’s decision to wear a sleeveless shirt to bed.

It takes longer than he'd like to walk from the bed to Alec’s bathroom, having to pause to stop the room spinning every once in a while. He pees. And spends more time getting  _ back  _ to bed, even with the help of the walls and other furniture.

He all but falls onto the mattress and gets halfway under the blankets before his body officially gives up. He's cold, he hurts, and he sort of wants to cry.

Magnus vaguely hears his phone before he falls into a chilly, uneasy sleep.

\-----

As he comes to full consciousness, Magnus realizes he only has moments before he vomits in Alec’s bed. The rush to the bathroom is a blur and he’s not sure how he manages besides sheer will to not look pathetic or make Alec’s life harder than he already has.

Magnus gives a sickening gag into the toilet, and then another. Nothing comes up, but he feels tears sting at the corners of his eyes that aren’t simply from throwing up. He’s tired, and a little scared that he’s going to be alone in here forever. Magnus heaves and brings up a wave of last night’s dinner, a horrible tasteless soup and simple sandwich from the institute cafeteria.

It’s not long before he’s finished. His body seems to be content with what he’s expelled for now.

And Magnus finally lets himself cry.

He curls up on the bathroom floor, managing to pull a towel down to offer a bit of warmth. He sniffles pitifully as tears run down his cheeks, and continues to shudder on the cold tile.

He should go back to bed. He tries to at one point, but his body is so tired from throwing up and running in here that he can’t seem to sit up without his vision going dark.

He thinks miserably that he wants Alec, which just makes him sob harder.

\-----

The door to Alec’s room opens.

Magnus is barely awake, barely aware of it, but just enough to hope that it’s Alec back from work. Magnus could use some help getting to bed, after all, and hopefully he can just go back to sleep and pretend that this was all a terrible nightmare.

“Magnus?” Izzy. Ah. What’s she doing here?

“Magn-? By the Angel!” Izzy’s at his side, laying a hand on his forehead and swearing colorfully. She taps his cheek and he groans. His skin is so oversensitive that even  _ that  _ hurts. “Hey, Magnus, can you hear me?”

“Mm,” he responds, brows furrowing as he’s once again aware of how much his entire body hurts.

“You’re burning up...” she seems to be saying it more to herself than to him, and that’s okay. He’s not much of a conversationalist right now. “Can you sit up for me?”

“Mm’m,” Magnus shakes his head. “Dizzy. Tired.”

Izzy swears again. “Okay, okay,” she pulls out her phone and texts expertly with one hand while the other pets his hair. It’s nice, more comforting at the moment than he’ll ever be willing to admit. The affection does remind him of one thing, though.

“Alec...”

Izzy shakes her head and continues running her fingers through his hair. “Alec’s out in the field on an emergency, but Jace will be here to help. I’m afraid I can’t carry you to the infirmary by myself.” She gives a light chuckle. “Everything’s fine,” she assures after a few silent moments, and follows it with more comforting words.

He’s vaguely aware of a male voice - still not his boyfriend, unfortunately - and of being hoisted up into someone's arms.

“Jace, why are you carrying me?” It’s the first sentence he’s managed to get out, and he feels that it’s a fair question. In a few days he's going to remember this loss of dignity and then try hard to forget it again.

Jace just laughs. “I’d like to see you walk, Magnus. Hold on tight.”

Magnus does not. He tries, but it’s impossible, and that seems to be alright because Jace seems to be able to hold onto him with no problem.

The first couple of steps jostle Magnus’ stomach and he groans.

“Magnus, if you puke on me...”

Instead, he ends up coughing weakly into Jace’s shoulder, not having near enough strength or willpower to cover it. Jace pauses, sighs heavily, and continues.

A little more time passes, Magnus keeping his eyes shut to avoid getting dizzier than he already is.

“Damn, he  _ is  _ burning up,” Jace says, Magnus feeling his voice vibrate in his chest.

“I told you,” Izzy replies. “I think it’s the flu? He must’ve been throwing up earlier.”

“I hope that’s all it is.”

Wait...

A fresh wave of anxiety goes through Magnus when he realizes that this could be something much worse. Is it because he lost his magic? Is his body just giving up on him now? He doesn’t realize he’s made any sort of worried noise until Jace’s grip on him tightens.

“Hey, it’s fine. We’ll get you figured out no matter what it is.”

Several faces he’s seen around the institute but never spoke to make themselves known in the infirmary. He wouldn’t have guessed that any of these people were doctors or healing experts. All of the shadowhunters gave off the same young-and-ready-to-fight-vibe.

A woman sticks something - a thermometer? Yeah. - in his ear and frowns at the reading.

Magnus hears bits of conversation after that. He tries hard to fall asleep and forget that this is happening, but alas his worries get the best of his body’s desire to rest.

“...probably the flu, but we’ll keep an eye...”

“...heard from Alec?”

“...on his way back...”

Despite not wanting to appear as weak as he is in front of anyone but Izzy and Jace, Magnus finds himself shuddering pitifully. He’s still so cold. There’s a thin blanket over him that does nothing, and if he had his magic he could make it warmer himself.

If he had his magic, he wouldn’t be in this mess. He wouldn’t be this weak and susceptible to a mundane illness that causes him to rely on everyone around him.

“...him another blanket?”

“...unfortunately, the fever...”

“Magnus!”

Now that,  _ that  _ is Alec’s voice. Magnus is sure he’s not hallucinating.

Alec runs into the room and a strong sense of relief falls over him as his boyfriend wraps him in a hug. Alec presses a kiss to his forehead, and his cheek, and hugs him again. Magnus has never wanted to hold onto someone so tightly in his entire life.

Magnus is sure to grab hold of his boyfriend's hand as Alec turns to talk to the doctor. He’s unwilling to give him up now he finally has Alec back, can’t have him walking away for even a second. Alec kisses the back of his hand and keeps it in his grip, an assurance that he's not going anywhere.

He seems to ask a lot of questions that Jace and Izzy have already been asking, but the doctor answers them patiently and offers the two of them the room.

Alec turns to him the moment that they’re alone. Their hands are still clasped together. Magnus has lost his grip, but Alec's keeps a strong, comforting hold on his hand.

“Why didn’t you say anything this morning?" He asks, brows knitted in concern. "I thought you felt warm when I kissed you but I just figured it was because we’d just woken up and...”

Magnus coughs, struggling to cover it and protect Alec from his horrible mundane germs. “I’m fine,” he says lamely.

“Magnus. Izzy said she went to look for you when you weren’t returning her texts. She found you on the  _ bathroom floor? _ ”

Magnus closes his eyes and sighs. That wasn’t his best moment. “She needed help?”

“She just had a question about someone in the downworld, nothing-  _ Magnus,  _ you-" he breathes out as if to calm himself. "You had a really high fever. You  _ have  _ a really high fever. They have you on some kind of medication to help, but if she hadn’t…"

“Was it really that bad?” he mumbles.

“Yes,” Alec answers definitively. “Yes, it was bad, Magnus. Don’t do that again. Please.”

Magnus really hopes that he can promise he won’t, but the idea that there’s even a possibility of  _ again,  _ that he’ll get sick like this in the future, is overwhelming.

He misses his magic.

He misses being the one in the relationship who does the looking-after. He misses being able to take care of himself and protect himself.

“I love you,” he says simply. He’s half asleep already, doesn’t have the strength to say much more.

Alec chuckles, but it’s laced with exhaustion and worry. “I love you too.”

“I’m really tired. Sorry.” Sorry that he's so useless now. Sorry that he's a burden. Sorry that he's still impossibly in love with someone who could very well have to deal with this for the rest of his life.

“Get some rest. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

**Author's Note:**

> Listen... listen. I'm not going to pretend I know that in's and out's of this universe. But I have a library of non-posted fics and while I usually prefer to keep most of them to myself to enjoy on my own, my view on posting this one was just... why the HECK not? So here we are. 
> 
> thank you to everyone for reading, and well wishes to all of you during this rough time <3 
> 
> talk to me [@botchedexperiment](https://botchedexperiment.tumblr.com) on tumblr


End file.
